091 – Are You Ambitious?

The topic of ambition recently came up in one of our VC2016 brainstorming sessions. After chatting about our ideas of what the word means to us individually, as well as the context it’s societally understood in, we knew we had to dig a little deeper into how describing ourselves as ambitious or not makes us feel and how judgement rears its ugly head in the labelling process.

am·bi·tion. amˈbiSH(ə)n/

noun – a strong desire to do or to achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work.

Now, that doesn’t sound so bad, does it? Determination. Desire. Hard work. Good, solid words to describe what keeps many of us going – having something to look forward to and achieve.

But, too often, the word(s) ambition/ambitious are used to either put ourselves or others down. Some people use ambition as a synonym for uncaring, ruthless, mean-spiritedness in others. Still today, we see ambitious women being labelled “bossy,” “bitch,” or any number of meant-to-be insults.

On the flip side, some of us put those we deem most ambitious into an untouchable realm of super-humanness… something we’ll never be, no matter how much we want something. We use this judgment to denigrate ourselves and add check marks to the “Not Good Enough” column. Put the measuring stick down!

In reality, we are all ambitious in different regards. Although the term is applied most often to career aspirations and/or monetary rewards, it can actually apply to any area that you are dedicated to doing your best in – self-love, family, projects, the environment, education, kindness, etc. It’s not a good or bad thing to be ambitious – it just is.